The circus goes sexy and artful in Lexus Broadway Series’ ‘Traces’
Mason Ames and Valerie Benoit-Charbonneau in 'Traces'
(Mona Reeder/Staff)
By Lawson Taitte
from:dallasnews.com
June 12, 2013
Here’s an advance look at my review of Traces:
I always knew that Cirque du Soleil or one of its offshoots would break through into genuine art. Traces has finally done it.
This show by the group 7 Fingers, directed and choreographed by Shana Carroll and Gypsy Snider, opened in the Lexus Broadway Series on Tuesday. Six men and one woman in ordinary street clothes use the skills and paraphernalia of contemporary circus performers to build wave after wave of emotion – including, but certainly not limited to, sheer amazement that they can do what they do.
“Art” may be a scary word for those just looking for entertainment. Never fear: Traces doesn’t come off as pretentious or stuffy. Sometimes a microphone descends from the fly-space so that the performers can chat about themselves. There’s plenty of lighthearted comedy as well as scary thrills, and the music (projected way too loudly) includes songs by groups like Radiohead.
Still, Traces feels most like modern dance with an enormously expanded vocabulary of movement. The defining number is a duet by Valerie Benoit-Charbonneau and Mason Ames. He lifts her and tosses her in the air for all the world like a Bolshoi ballerina – except that the heights and the catches are much more spectacular. The whole thing drips with sexual passion, but metaphorically, through the excitable rhythms, rather than graphically imitating the real thing.
To an old-fashioned jazz instrumental version of “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” six of the performers sail blithely across the stage on skateboards while Mathieu Cloutier weaves around them or jumps over them on rollerblades. In another number, the acrobats swing up and down a pair of tall posts; Lucas Boutin shimmies up highest and fastest of all.
In some of the older proscenium circuses in the contemporary Montreal-based style, the aerial acts have proved the most poetic – often using props such as large, flowing swatches of fabric. The two aerial acts in Traces dispense with such frou-frou.
L.J. Marles uses the straps to gain altitude in a metaphorical study of struggle and frustration. Later in the show, Benoit-Charbonneau dons a dark red dress – the only colorful costume all night – to make an aerial poem about freedom and danger. You’ll hold your breath when she returns to the ground held up only by the weight of her head in the strap.
Other exciting moments include daredevil sky-high somersaults off a see-saw and a reverse limbo competition: Instead of bringing the space the dancers must get through lower to the ground, these folks raise it higher and higher in the air. No elephants, no clowns, not even any spangles: This circus is all about seven amazingly magnetic human beings.
Plan your life--
Through June 23 at the Winspear Opera House, 2403 Flora St, Dallas. Runs 90 mins. $25 to $150. 214-880-0202. attpac.org.
By Lawson Taitte
from:dallasnews.com
June 12, 2013
Here’s an advance look at my review of Traces:
I always knew that Cirque du Soleil or one of its offshoots would break through into genuine art. Traces has finally done it.
This show by the group 7 Fingers, directed and choreographed by Shana Carroll and Gypsy Snider, opened in the Lexus Broadway Series on Tuesday. Six men and one woman in ordinary street clothes use the skills and paraphernalia of contemporary circus performers to build wave after wave of emotion – including, but certainly not limited to, sheer amazement that they can do what they do.
“Art” may be a scary word for those just looking for entertainment. Never fear: Traces doesn’t come off as pretentious or stuffy. Sometimes a microphone descends from the fly-space so that the performers can chat about themselves. There’s plenty of lighthearted comedy as well as scary thrills, and the music (projected way too loudly) includes songs by groups like Radiohead.
Still, Traces feels most like modern dance with an enormously expanded vocabulary of movement. The defining number is a duet by Valerie Benoit-Charbonneau and Mason Ames. He lifts her and tosses her in the air for all the world like a Bolshoi ballerina – except that the heights and the catches are much more spectacular. The whole thing drips with sexual passion, but metaphorically, through the excitable rhythms, rather than graphically imitating the real thing.
To an old-fashioned jazz instrumental version of “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” six of the performers sail blithely across the stage on skateboards while Mathieu Cloutier weaves around them or jumps over them on rollerblades. In another number, the acrobats swing up and down a pair of tall posts; Lucas Boutin shimmies up highest and fastest of all.
In some of the older proscenium circuses in the contemporary Montreal-based style, the aerial acts have proved the most poetic – often using props such as large, flowing swatches of fabric. The two aerial acts in Traces dispense with such frou-frou.
L.J. Marles uses the straps to gain altitude in a metaphorical study of struggle and frustration. Later in the show, Benoit-Charbonneau dons a dark red dress – the only colorful costume all night – to make an aerial poem about freedom and danger. You’ll hold your breath when she returns to the ground held up only by the weight of her head in the strap.
Other exciting moments include daredevil sky-high somersaults off a see-saw and a reverse limbo competition: Instead of bringing the space the dancers must get through lower to the ground, these folks raise it higher and higher in the air. No elephants, no clowns, not even any spangles: This circus is all about seven amazingly magnetic human beings.
Plan your life--
Through June 23 at the Winspear Opera House, 2403 Flora St, Dallas. Runs 90 mins. $25 to $150. 214-880-0202. attpac.org.
